Pulses: A Memoir Through Art

The idea for this book evolved organically and then all at once made sense to me, the way a tadpole naturally unfolds into its own bull-froggy heft. Pulses: A Memoir Through Art became a record of transformation as I decided to learn to draw at age 50.  By sharing the evolution of my work---several hundred images, journal entries and lyrical text---I invite you into the alchemical process that emerged when I committed to an art practice. My path became one of reclamation, revisiting my charged German and Jewish ancestries through making art, and gathering insight from the past to guide my hopes for us as our rapidly warming world calls. I hope this book might spark impulses of your own, as we collectively become our future.

This book is all about getting it into your hands, so if you need financial assistance, please don't be shy.  Contact me directly at jenevans339@pm.me      Pay-what-you-can slots open up regularly. 

Excerpts from my book:

“We’ve all heard that learning new skills gets harder the older you get—but old dogs love a new trick. For me, learning to draw and paint later in life started an unexpected revolution in the way I see myself and how I’ll move forward in the world from here on out. Every day since 2016, I’ve focused on an art practice that connects my hand, eye, and imagination. Art-making has become personal research grounded in an

artist’s perspective and vision. It’s work, a job, a calling, and I go into the studio every day regardless of how I feel. I brought faith and trust to the art-making practice. I had faith that if I fought to clear out the time that creating art requires, something important could happen.” 

“The climate crisis continues to escalate, so it is not surprising that the topic would influence my work in the studio. I go out into the world and capture on paper neighborhood parades, protests, and communal spirit in many forms. This direct way of drawing and exploring ideas has provoked many questions: What is our responsibility in a rapidly and unfairly warming world? How do we live our lives now that we can see our planet’s trajectory? Can we imagine and build a society based more on values like connection and care than on continuous growth? These questions come with me into the studio.”

" There exists the sense that we can’t have an influence, that we’re too late. These “you can’t” messages are much like the messages I faced as an individual for decades about drawing. But like the characters in

The Overstory, I am not a lone being, nor is Powers, whose creation I metabolized. His life as an artist, his understory, is part of the rhizomatic topography that touches and fuels my book, daring me to join the

intertwined artistic network flowing beneath our feet. My confidence on this road grows with my own art practice in the mix.”

“Reading The Overstory, drawing, painting, exploring my family history, and living through the pandemic as climate disasters worsened were the ingredients that added up to a deepened connection with my people, my heritages, and our planet. Reconnecting with the fundamental human activity of art making rekindled my everyday exalted kinship with the natural world. We inspire each other as we bring our creations and visions forward—projects tended over years and daily acts of beauty. This can include the meals we make, songs we sing, and kindnesses we extend, all naturally part of our rooting into the earth and waters and reaching upward to the overstory of our natural world, unfurling like my redbud’s leaves.”